Page 279 sur 483

"The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me. Should

she indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the

murderer? Thus would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes

opened and she beheld me. The thought was madness; it stirred the

fiend within me-not I, but she, shall suffer; the murder I have

committed because I am for ever robbed of all that she could give

me, she shall atone. The crime had its source in her; be hers the

punishment! Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary

laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her

and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her

dress. She moved again, and I fled.